This past Friday afternoon, hundreds of Harvard University students and affiliates received identical death threats via email from a “hotmail.de” address and a Google Mail address. The Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) reported no suspicious activity on campus immediately following the email distribution.

The life of the humble biomedical postdoctoral researcher was never easy: toiling in obscurity in a low-paying scientific apprenticeship that can stretch more than a decade. The long hours were worth it for the expected reward — the chance to launch an independent laboratory and do science that could expand human understanding of biology and disease.